


Unsolicited Advice

by queen_jadis



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2015-05-16
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3952600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_jadis/pseuds/queen_jadis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The whole plot with Mary and Moriarty has unravelled, and so has the Watsons' marriage. But before Mary disappears from London, she has a few things to tell Sherlock about the Care and Handling of John H. Watson. Whether he wants to hear them or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unsolicited Advice

He can hear her before she says anything.

He can even hear her silent disapproval of the cigarette he's smoking.

She won't say anything, he thinks. She realises that isn't her place. Not now. Not anymore.

"Here to say goodbye?" he says without looking at her.

"Not quite," she says. "There are still a few loose ends in London for me to tie."

This is the first time since they’ve seen each other since they said goodbye at the tarmac. By then, Sherlock had mentally said goodbye to all of this. London. 221B. John. Resolved that he’d never see them again.

It’s something of an adjustment to find that these things are available to him again. After a whirlwind weekend of deducing, directing Mycroft’s troops, and a fair bit of actual running around, here he is. 

Mary clambers onto the roof and sits next to him, staring over the city landscape.

He wonders if she'll miss it.

Maybe she'll just close this chapter in her life and never think about it again. Not really.

People like her often can.  That's the only way for them to survive as they do.

"You'll have to take care of him," she says after a while.

"I don't need you to tell me that," he says shortly.

Of course he'll take care of John. Like she did, when he left John. Only this time Sherlock will be there for him. This time he'll be the one John can rely on. This time Sherlock will do everything right. This time Sherlock won't be the villain in the story.

"I've done that," Mary says, echoing his thoughts. "I was with him, before. I can tell you what he needs."

He snorts.

"As if you can tell me anything about John Watson."

She raises her eyebrows.

"Don't be silly, Sherlock. You know I can."

"There is nothing," he spits out, "that you need to tell me. Just go. Allow us to put this all behind us. Leave us be. He'll be fine."

"He'll be a mess," she says. Not unfairly, Sherlock thinks.

John will be a mess.

"He's been a mess before." He takes a long drag on his cigarette.

"I don't think being a mess is something that improves by repetition," she says with a tilt of her head. "Rather the reverse."

"We'll be fine," Sherlock bites out.

He once thought they could be friends, he and Mary. He liked her, like he so rarely liked people. He'd even admired her, when he realised how thoroughly she'd duped him - him! But then he realised that she would leave. And his admiration and his liking of her evaporated. Although he can still see the traits that he admired, he can’t find much warmth in his heart for Mary Morstan.

"Sherlock?"

He looks her properly in the eyes for the first time and slowly blows a cloud of smoke in her face.

"Sherlock!" She makes a face and waves the smoke away.

"What? Worried it might be bad for the baby?" He allows himself a little eye-roll.

She isn’t pregnant.

Never was.

Obviously - in retrospect. Lots of things became obvious, when the last agents in Moriarty’s network used their final efforts to produce mass-panic with that little broadcasting stunt.

By doing so they showed enough of their hand for Mycroft and his lot to ferret them out. The last operatives were… persuaded to fill in the last pieces of the picture Sherlock had already assembled of the whole web. Everything is obvious now. Even Mary’s role in it all. And that’s why she’ll be sneaking off sooner rather than later.

He thinks he can see a flicker of hurt flit across her face at the mention of the pregnancy. But only for a moment.

"Sherlock, I'm serious. I worry about him."

"Does he know that you're about to disappear?"

"I... I think he does." She hesitates. "On some level."

"So, to paraphrase - No." He huffs a humourless laugh. He doubts she’s told John about the baby either.

This is one reason Sherlock can’t bear to contact him yet.

"You know I care about him, Sherlock." She stuffs her hands into the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. "And, although I doubt you'll believe it, I care about you."

"What do I need to do to make you leave? Aside from pushing you." He allows his gaze to trail down the roof and to the busy street below. "And trust me, I'm considering it."

"Oh, Sherlock, stop. You know this sort of thing doesn't work on me. I know you're curious. I know this is something you're willing to listen to. You've always been willing to stop to consider John."

He hates it when she pretends to be all-knowing like that. She's not. She doesn't know anything about him.

Besides, if she asked John he'd tell her that Sherlock had never once been considerate towards him in all their years together.

"Curious, that you refuse to leave, since you're here precisely because you're about to run off."

"Things will be more complicated for John this time around." She looks worried. Honestly worried - as if John is any of her concern. "Sure, the last time he was plenty conflicted. Survivor's guilt. And lots of... " she waves her hand almost dismissively, "feelings."

"Feelings?"

"Unresolved ones. And he'll have those now too. Because he loved me, Sherlock." She stares at him, as if to dare him to object.

As if he would.

Sherlock knows John loved Mary. He never would've stood next to John while he promised herself to her if he hadn't believed he loved her.

"Yes, I imagine he loves you still," he says, his sentences as stiff as his posture, there upon the roof of 221B with the woman who won John Watson's heart and tried to murder Sherlock.

"As I said - this will be complicated. He'll be furious. But not at himself, like he was the last time."

Sherlock isn't so sure about that. John will be furious that he fell for Mary. He'll be furious that he's feeling hurt, in spite of everything.

"He'll be fine," he says anyway. And he knows he will be.

Sherlock will be there for him.

"He will be if you do this right," she says. "And I want you to do this right, Sherlock. You're my boys," and she gives him an oddly wobbly smile, like she's about to cry. "Or at least you were. For a time."

He silently admires her acting skills.

"Goodbye, Mary," he says. Slightly stressing her assumed name, but not asking her for any other. It's the facet of Mary Morstan he's telling goodbye. He never knew any other one.

"Sherlock, if he knew how... How you feel. It would change everything for him. It would turn his world upside down. It would... It would give him hope and joy and excitement and all the things he'll need. If he's supposed to get through this."

Obviously she's expecting to shock him, by suggesting… That. She's hoping for him to jerk his head up in surprise, to gasp to deny the feelings she's assigning him.

He does no such thing.

He's used to people assuming they know things about him and John.

"It's curious," he says instead, "that up here, where no-one can hear us, you still use your English accent. Even though we both know that it isn't yours."

"You don't find it curious at all," she says with a smile that reminds him of the old Mary. Cheeky and knowing at the same time. "You know exactly why I do it. You know that dropping in and out of an accent for no good reason is a bad idea. You're just deflecting. Badly."

"Go away, Mary," he says wearily. "We have nothing more to discuss."

"If you go about this the way I think you will, Sherlock, you might kill him," she says bluntly.

He gives an incredulous huff.

"I mean it, Sherlock. He was so close to giving up when I found him. Back then. And having gone that close to the brink once? It only means he now knows the way. It won't take him as long the second time to find himself there."

He doesn't care for this constant comparison. He doesn't like thinking too much about what things were like for John while he was away.

It doesn't matter, anyway. It's all in the past.

"Yes, well. Things are different now." This time John has Sherlock. He has something to live for.

"Yes and no," she says as she crosses her ankles. "You’ll be there for him, this time around. But you'll also serve as a reminder of how he's gone through this before. Your presence will remind him how he has been betrayed before. Abandoned. You'll need to do something a bit better than taking him along on cases and showing off for him. It won't be enough. Not when he'll be doubting everything he is and everything he's ever done. Being a second fiddle won't help him with that. You'll need to cast him in a central role."

"Metaphors, Mary, aren't really your forte."

"Think about it."

"You could also stay," he says. "If you're that concerned about how he'll cope with you leaving."

She smiles sadly at him. But there is also something unpleasant in her face, condescending.

"Me staying never would've been enough for him." As if she's suggesting some fault with John - John!

She has some serious nerve.

She stands up lightly and moves towards the window. She's wearing some cross between civilian clothing and her assassin-wear. It's black and tight and probably easy to move around in, but doesn't really stand out.

"You're leaving tonight?"

"Not tonight," she says. "But soon."

And then she's gone.

Sherlock exhales heavily, once he's sure she's out of earshot.

He won't be able to talk to John until she's gone. He can't look him in the face and pretend that he doesn't know that his world is about to crash.

But he won't really try to stop her either.

If she is going, then she'll go and there is nothing anyone can do to stop her. It was, after all, painfully obvious that she'd never be happy playing John Watson's housewife in the long run. So it's better this way.

He lights another cigarette and smokes it, resolutely not thinking about what she said about John.

Utter nonsense, the lot of it.

They'll be fine. They'll be just like they were before. John will move back in, they'll solve cases and John will blog about it. And soon Mary will be nothing but an unpleasant memory.

It'll be fine.

As if John would ever hurt himself, while in Sherlock's care.

He stands up once the cigarette has been smoked down to the filter and returns to the flat. Surely there is something in his inbox that can distract him for a while. At least going through the incoming cases will kill some time.

 

* * *

 

 

"Mary, you do actually know who my brother is," he says later that night when she turns up later that night. "And what he does?"

He’s still tired – so tired – from the last few days and would very much like to be left alone. But here she is. Again.

"Of course I know."

"Good. So you'll know that the only reason you haven't been arrested yet is his idea of a filial..."

"Affection?"

He snorts. "Favour. He is, as a courtesy to John - and therefore as a courtesy to me - giving you a little head-start. Make no mistake, I'm sure he'll give his foreign counterparts all the information he's gathered on you to aid them in your capture, but he's not going to make the arrest himself. Not if he can avoid it. And he can't avoid it if you insist on hanging around on his doorstep. So Mary?" He steps into her personal space and whispers in her ear. "Scoot!"

"A favour to John?" She smiles almost sadly. "I'm not sure John will see it like that. He'll probably wish he could've snapped the handcuffs on me himself, once he finds everything out."

"Oh, don't get all kinky on me, Mary," he says with an exaggerated sigh.

"Ah, but wasn't that the point?" She waggles her eyebrows, as if they're not discussing her incarnation for life.

"The point is, Mary," he sighs, "that you need to go."

"I know," she says. "I'm going. But this really is important to me, Sherlock. You and him. Happy."

"I've told you. I'll take care of him."

"I know. But you need someone to help you with this, and there's no one else."

Sherlock is on the verge of pointing out that Mrs. Hudson is right there in the building, ever willing to help with things that are none of her business, but thinks better of it. He mustn't allow Mary to draw him into this moronic conversation.

"How often can I say this, Mary? I don't need any help. I've lived with him longer than you have. Everything will be fine. John will be fine. The only thing stopping us from being fine is your continued presence in London. Go. Away."

She doesn't reply at once. Seems to think it over.

"I get it," she says after a while, “that you're not ready to talk about this to other people. But, Sherlock? You _are_ aware of it yourself, aren't you?" She peers her eyes at him. Like she's trying to measure the levels of his self-ignorance.

He grits his teeth.

She continues. "You know that you love him, don't you? And that he loves you? Utterly, completely, wholeheartedly, the lot of it? And I really don't mean that in a platonic sense."

There is sadness in her eyes.

How dares she? Sadness? How can she act like a devoted wife heroically admitting that her husband loves another, when she herself has never uttered a true word within their marriage? It’s absurd.

And while he’s thinking this, on another, deeper channel of his mind, Mary’s words are running on repeat.  

"Goodbye, Mary." He rubs his temples and stretches out on the sofa.

"Think about what I've said. I'll be in touch."

"Don't be in touch. Flee, Mary. If you value your freedom."

"You're cute when you're all dramatic," she says with a smile as she wraps her scarf around her neck. "Oh, and for the record?" She glances over her shoulder. "We've never really tried the hardcore BDSM stuff, so I wouldn't know about the handcuffs. But given a little more time I'm sure he would've been willing to try a bit more than the traditional blindfolds and ostrich feathers." She winks at him and disappears down the stairs.

Sherlock is left alone and wondering what the hell ostrich feathers have to do with anything.

 

* * *

 

 

Sherlock knows all about surveillance. He knows how tedious it is, how time consuming, how – sometimes – downright humiliating it is.

He is therefore not quite as impressed as the regular person might be when Mary slips into the seat next to him on the tube the next morning, as if she’s just managed to magic up his location in all of London and can stroll up to him like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

He wonders how long she’s been lurking at the station just to make this supposedly grand entrance. He finds it a bit pathetic – and that cheers him up quite a bit.

"I hope you’ve thought about what I said," she says as she removes her hat and settles into her seat.

"Certainly," he says. "So many interesting things you said yesterday. At least eight clues about your future destination. Four about your past. Traces of your real accent, now that I know to look for it, can found in certain words. You probably spent ages on your "S", didn’t you?"

She ignores this. "He needs to feel appreciated. And important."

Sherlock takes a deep breath, as he ponders the absurdity of the statement, but she plows on. "I know you think that this doesn't apply to you and him. That he knows without being told. That he'll be happy just being near you, like he was. But it doesn't work like that. Not if you're supposed to be more than flatmates. And also... Well. Things have changed, haven't they, Sherlock?"

Sherlock doesn't know what she means by this. Is she trying to make him feel guilty about the Fall and all that came after? And if she is - why?

The man sitting in front of them has completely stopped reading his paper, although his eyes are still glued to the page as he listens to them.

"Go away, Mary."

"I’m trying to help you."

"I told you. John and I don’t need any help."

"But you do! And I know you don’t believe me but I… I care, Sherlock. So, like you helped prepare my wedding, let me do this."

"Ah," says Sherlock. "An excellent reminder. You tried being his suburban housewife, and look how well that turned out." He gives her a hard look. "Why are you so invested in turning me into the same?"

She appears a little stung at this. Maybe she liked playing the little housewife?

The man in front of them has completely given up on his Sudoku and appears to be taking notes from their conversation.  A wannabe writer, then. Delightful.

"See, Sherlock? This is why I need to tell you these things. Because you can’t tell the difference from being in a relationship or turning yourself into a housewife. Because you… You’re not good at this, are you?” She smiles at him, almost ruefully. “You can’t just barge in and try to be friends with benefits. He needs more than that. He needs a relationship."

"I thought that was what a relationship was supposed to be?" It’s out before he can stop himself. He’s failing miserably in his vow not to engage with her. "That’s what makes a relationship. A personal connection and a… A sexual connection." He hardly stumbles on the last words – but he does and he knows that she notices.

"I know that’s what you think, Sherlock," she says with a sad smile. "Why do you think I’m having these talks with you?"

He stands up and leaves the tube carriage, grabbing the outraged neighbour’s notebook with him as he goes.

Mary lets him.

It isn’t until he’s almost to the surface that he realises that this time he didn’t bother correcting her assumptions about him, John and a relationship.

 

* * *

 

 

"We need to talk about sex."

She's in his living room, sitting in John's chair.

Sherlock ignores her.

He has a pounding headache, after spending the afternoon with his mother, and he can't deal with this right now. She rises as he flops in his chair and heads for the kitchen.

"Seriously," she says, as she starts up the kettle. "It's important. It's important to him."

"Yes, well, I'm sure he'll do excellently in finding some, after you leave. He did before he met you."

He was going to keep ignoring her, to retreat into his mind palace and wait her out.

He's not sure why he isn't able to.

"Don't act like you aren't interested, Sherlock. I know you like to suggest asexuality, but..."

"I don't suggest a thing!"

"And that, my friend, is suggesting asexuality." She winks, like they're a couple of schoolgirls, snickering at a sleepover. "But you're not asexual, Sherlock."

"Seriously, I don't know why you insist on coming to have these talks, Mary. You clearly don’t require my input for them."

"John probably thinks you are, you know."

Sherlock allows his eyes to flutter shut. He doesn't want to deal with this.

"You need to tell him, Sherlock."

"Right. Should I call him now, do you think? "Hi, John, this is your best...man, Sherlock. I'm just calling to tell you that I'm not asexual. Tootles!" Something like that? Please, feel free to criticise. This is your script, after all."

She rolls her eyes, as if he's being deliberately difficult.

"I know that you won't be able to manage this alone.” She pushes a mug of tea into his hands. “I mean, you won't pull this off all by yourself. You'll need a lot of help from John to get to where you two are going. Which is as it should be. But John needs to know that you two are headed in the same direction. And he won’t be trying to steer the two of you in any direction if he keeps thinking you’re asexual."

"What have I told you about metaphors, Mary? Please leave them to the professionals."

"Oh, Sherlock. I'm a professional through and through." And she grins like a very self-satisfied shark.

 

* * *

 

"Blow-jobs, Sherlock."

He's walking through Kensington Gardens, shortly before closing time, when she materialises next to him.

"Good God, are you still here? Don’t you have somewhere to be, some people to kill?"

"Blow-jobs. The key to your happiness with John. Really, the best way to get him to agree to anything, to forgive anything and to generally get him in a pleased and pliant mood."

"I don't need your help, Mary. And I certainly don't need John "pliant.""

"Oh, you'd be surprised how much fun he can be when he’s pliant.” She grins at him.

He bristles, like he does every time she suggests that she knows things about John that he doesn’t.

"Go away, Mary. I’m working."

"Oh, don't get your knickers in a twist. I’m not going to lecture you about technique. I’m sure Google has all the information you might need."

"Mary," he bites out. "I’m thirty-eight years old, I don’t need _Google_ to tell me anything."

She, infuriatingly doesn’t reply, but rather gives him one of her more patronising (is it bordering on pitying?) smiles.

"As I said, it’s not about what he likes and what he doesn’t – it’s more fun for you to figure that out for yourself anyway – but just a reminder not to neglect it. Lots of people do, you know, and that’s a shame. It’s not just something that’s a part of the foreplay, it’s just as good as the main course."

"And this little philosophy of yours isn’t something you think I should "find out for myself?" when I, supposedly, embark on a sexual relationship with your husband?"

"Ah, you’re a genius, but you do have your blind spots, dear," says the woman who murdered him and winks.

Sherlock stares at her in horror for a few minutes before he ducks over a fence and into the enclosed pet cemetery, where he has some urgent business to take care of. And possibly a Victorian era dog to exhume, once darkness has fallen, but that’s neither here nor there.

Mary, thankfully, does not follow.

 

* * *

 

 

John is calling him. The phone is set to silent, but Sherlock watches the screen flash in the darkness of 221B. He does not pick up.

What could he possibly say?

Well, obviously, he could lie to him. He's done that, before. He's bluffed, he's deflected and he's outright lied to his face. But if this is supposed to be their new beginning, he can't do that now.

God, this supposed emotional growth is tedious.

Sometimes he misses his old self. Things were simpler, before the Fall and everything that came after. There were so much fewer factors to consider.

But he's gone through it. The emotional growth, that is. It's been painful and constricting and Mycroft's obvious distain and amusement about the whole thing has been utterly insufferable, but the thing wasn't to be avoided.

So now he's hiding from John.

Emotional growth can clearly manifest itself in curious ways.

He picks up the phone once it's stopped ringing.

"On a case. Situation sensitive. Will call later. SH"

The reply comes instantly.

"Be careful."

Hopefully this is enough. Enough not to make John feel abandoned. Enough to make him smile in the middle of the night.

Sherlock wonders if Mary is right next to him. He has no idea how the Watsons are communicating these days. What Mary tells John, what he feels after the Christmas from Hell – anything.

What on earth is her agenda here? Even now, when the battle has (just about) been lost and won, Sherlock still can't quite wrap his head around Mary Morstan. He knows the facts. He knows some of her background, her contract with Moriarty, her plan in marrying John. But he doesn't quite know what makes her tick. Not fully.

Sure, he knows all sorts of things about her twisted little mind. The usual stuff, with people of her ilk. The intelligence, the thrill of the game, the addiction to danger, the almost sexual response she has to deception.

But this last contribution of hers - he doesn't understand that.

He knows that she likes to see him wrong-footed. She likes to see him confused. She almost gets off on it, to have Sherlock Holmes, supposed mastermind, baffled. Because of her.

Clever people often do.

But is there something else at work?

Sherlock isn't stupid. He has, after all, gone through a lot of emotional growth over a short period of time.

He can recognise what he's doing. He can watch himself avoid thinking about the main topic that's crowding his head. He knows that he's focusing on Mary because that allows him to ignore the big issue. The thing that he spends most of his time thinking about how he shouldn't be thinking about it.

John.

His John.

Mostly, he's been picturing everything like it was. There's comfort in that. Almost like they can rewind, and go back to the way things were before the Fall. Take-out on the sofa, joint grocery shopping, arguments about mundane things. Crap TV.

But lurking behind those thoughts are other thoughts. Thoughts that sustained him, in his exile. Thoughts about more. Maybe. A little more. A small, guilty hope. Fantasies – fantasies! – about stupid things. Like John’s hands.

It's absurd, how that can make him blush there in the dark. This stupid, mundane, domestic idea of grabbing John's hand. In public. Or at home. Without either himself or John taking any notice of it, because it's such a common, unremarkable event.

And behind those secret thoughts are the ones that Mary whispers in his ear. The filthy thoughts. The ones that suggest that John would be everything Mary promises. That Sherlock could, somehow, have everything John Watson has to offer. That Sherlock could taste him everywhere and learn all his sounds.

But those thoughts are - as they've always been - forbidden. But now even the very awareness of them is tainted. They, the most private of musings, feel as if Mary has her fingerprints all over them.

And that's intolerable.

It's intolerable enough that she's had her hands all over John Watson. It's utterly insufferable to be constantly reminded of her exploration of areas that remain a mystery to himself, but her insertion of herself in those private thoughts is perhaps the worst of all.

No. The worst of all is the comfort his stupid mind appears to take in Mary's - _Mary's_ \- assurance that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are meant to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, yes, it is something of a problem with a Johnlock fanfic that John has failed to make an appearance in the first 4500 words of the fic. Sorry about that ;) I promise he'll be all over the next chapter. 
> 
> I plan to update every weekend.


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